Hastert Fires Himself

Those in glass houses.....Hastert Vows to Fire Anyone Who Hid Page Info


See:

Foley

Congress, interns, pages, Foley, Hastert, Speaker, Ethics, Republicans, sex-scandal, email, sexual-harassment, US, politcs, gay, homosexuality, sex

Ambrose Lies, Should Resign

Welcome to New Green Government of Canada ala George Orwell and Jonathan Swift.

Sun Parliament Hill columnist Greg Weston, in his latest column, outlines another lie from our MIA Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, unabashedly presented as fact in front of the parliamentary Environment Committee last week.

In what has become an all too predictable process when she is caught without facts Ambrose doesn't just make them up as she goes but in a true Hegelian fashion turns facts on their head. She fudges facts and outright lies. But that is not an offense under the Conservatives new Accountability Act.

Her other lie in front of the committee was deliberately misquoting from an American pro-environmental document.

And as usual true to form our MIA Environment Minister was not available today for media interviews. Despite the PM announcing that she would have an announcement next week.

These are just two more reasons, in a six month litany of deliberate falsification and lies about facts by Ambrose. Whose first lie was to say she represents Edmonton Spruce Grove when she lives in Edmonton Strathcona. The woman is a compulsive liar.

I am still waiting for someone to set up a on line petition for her to resign that we can all sign.

As it is let your MP and the Opposition parties know we expect them to call for her resignation next week.

Its the least we can do to help cure her of her moral turpitude.


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Ending Child Labour Means Child Exploitation

India has announced a further ban on the use of child labour. This time in domestic service industries. The problem is that children are already working in these industries and the government has no rehabilitation plans. Which leaves these children open to far worse exploitation in the underground economy and the sex industry.

Child Labour laws need to be enforcable, such as being able to offer children an alternative to work, that is having families able to support themselves without using their children, a living wage, and public education.

Which is not occuring in India. Instead this is another example of the State passing legislation that is useless except as a PR effort. Thus what is good for Alberta should be good for India, when it comes to the domesitic industry.

Flip-side to the child labour ban

Toral Varia

CNN-IBN

Posted Tuesday , October 10, 2006 at 19:18Updated Tuesday , October 10, 2006 at 20:32

NO REASON TO SMILE: 15-year-old Arjun had come to Mumbai to earn a living to support his family.

New Delhi: The Labour Ministry notification banning employing children below 14 years as domestic helps or at eateries came into force on Tuesday even as the children had little to cheer about in the absence of a comprehensive rehabilitation package.

The fresh notification prohibits employment of children as domestic help or as servants in dhabas, restaurants, teashops, resorts, spas and recreational centres. But does this notification take into account the problem of rehabilitation of the millions of child workers in India?

“I work from 10 to 3 during the day and then from 6:30 till 11 in the night,” says Child Labourer, Arjun working in a small restaurant in Mumbai.

What exactly is the child labour law?

The Child Labour Act prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 years. According to Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, those found violating it could face a jail term of up to two-years and a maximum fine of Rs 20,000.

His everyday work includes sweeping the floor, cleaning and serving food in the hotel. “There is no money at home, that is why I am here,” says the 15-year-old who had come to Mumbai to earn a living to support his family. He will be just one amongst many children who have nowhere to go after the implementation of the SC ban.

“There are children from Kolkata and South India, Karnatka and Mdaras who work here. Where will they go if they don work?” the hotel manager says.

Though the ban makes sense, very little thought seems to have gone into the future of the children most of whom are breadwinners for their families.

See:

Child Labour In Alberta

Child Labour Returns to Alberta

Kielburger Wins Nobel

Kids Are Commodities

Wal Mart Exploits Child Labour

Big Brother Wal Mart

CPP Funds Wal Mart

Private Property=Child Labour

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Truckin

Change the speed limit and you reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by commercial trucking. And you don't need a new clean air act to do it. Just the will to do it.

Trucking Alliance Leader says "Canada could do better"


Vehicle Emissions Canada Transportation Act Review Panel
The trucking industry is a large and growing contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, currently accounting for about 27% of total emissions from the transport sector.

Canada's Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990 - 1999

GHGs from Transport, driven by increases in trucking activity and the number of private Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and vans on the road, rose by 24%. Emissions from light duty trucks, which include pick-up trucks, SUVs and vans, have increased by 57% since 1990, while emissions from cars have actually decreased 7%. The Canadian vehicle fleet is growing and shifting towards more light duty trucks that, on average, emit 40% more GHGs per kilometer than cars.

Report to Parliament Under the Energy Efficiency Act 2004-2005

Chapter 6 – Transportation

Total transportation energy use increased by 25.7 percent (483 petajoules) over 1990 to 2003 freight transportation energy use increased by 40.1 percent (271 petajoules).

The transportation sector accounts for 27.9 percent (2361 petajoules) of secondary energy use and 33.6 percent (169 megatonnes) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. From 1990 to 2003, transportation energy use increased by 25.7 percent, and GHG emissions increased by 25.0 percent. The change in GHG intensity of transportation energy use was negligible.

And it appears some in the industry are willing to go with a reduced speed limit. Typical of Canadian environment policy when it comes to commercial trucking our policy is made in the USA using NAFTA as the excuse to not create a made in Canada policy around road speed reduction. Ironically as the American trucking industry lobbies for such a reduction it uses the Ontario Trucking Association lobbying for exactly this as an example....


Carriers join special interest group in petitioning for made-in-America speed limiter rule

Bill Graves, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, has submitted a letter of support for this measure to the FMCSA. The petition will be available for public comment as soon as it is docketed for rulemaking by the federal agency.

Last year, the Ontario Trucking Association was the first trucking lobby group to propose speed limiters on trucks. The group pledged at the time it would export its idea across North America. Since then, the OTA -- which has argued speed limit set at 105 km/h would reduce accidents, save fuel, and cut emissions -- has been successful in getting the endorsements of other provincial trucking associations and continues to market the idea nation wide under the banner of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

The fear that Independent operators have is that this will mean longer trips, more time on the road and the incease possibilty of accidents and burnout from long shifts. So coincidental with lowering the speed, new hours of work regulations need to be applied in the NAFTA transportation corridor.

Th industry lobby wants to reduce road speeds to 70 mph. When in reality 55-65 miles per hours would produce even greater reductions in emmissions as we learned in the 70's.


See

Kyoto

Ambrose

Green Plan



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Tories Announce Announcement

The Harper government announced today, that like previous announcements, this announcement was to announce that next week they will announce that they have an announcement about their Green Plan which will not be a green plan but an anti-smog plan. Details of the plan that were to be announced today, will not be announced till the announcement next week about the announcement pending further consultations.

Harper presses forward with Clean Air Act despite opposition


See

Kyoto

Ambrose

Green Plan



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Vancouver Is Green This Time of Year

Which is why the Tories are launching the first part of their Green Plan there. Its the only Green they have in their plan, the background photo op in Stanely Park or wherever.Government expected to launch green environment agenda in Vancouver

See:

Ambrose

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North Korea Discovers TNT

Was it really a nuclear blast? The actual explosive material has been claimed to be less than 1 kl.tonne and no more than 4 kl.tonnes. Which can be created with conventional TNT. So like their failed missle test was this another fient? A conventional explosion made to appear as a nuclear blast?! To get the US to the bargaining table? That was the case in 2004.





Success, failure or bluff? Scientists pore over data

US intelligence says detected 'sub-kilotonne' blast in North Korea

Success, failure or bluff? Scientists pore over data

Low Yield Of Blast Surprises Analysts

Experts question North Korea's test claim

N Korea N-test more fizz than pop: US agencies





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Disassociative Humour

It's another Duh'O headline....

FDA Approves the First Drug to Treat Irritability Associated with Autism Is that for the caregivers or the autistic person?

The assumption here is that autism is a disease in search of a pharmaceutical cure.

There was an interesting item on Quirks and Quarks on CBC this weekend challenging the assumption that autism is a mental illness needing a cure.



In the big dictionary of mental disorders known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM for short, autism is listed as a mental illness. According to the psychiatric manual, people with autism don't communicate well, have trouble interacting with others, and often have some unusual and repetitive behaviours. Scientists have been very interested in understanding what causes autism -- mostly with an eye to curing it.

Now, two autism researchers in Montreal are arguing that maybe autism isn't something that needs to be cured. Maybe it isn't even a mental disorder.

The two researchers make an unlikely team. One is Dr. Laurent Mottron, a psychiatrist and cognitive neuroscientist at the Riviere-des-Prairies Hospital. He has been studying autism for 25 years. The other is Michelle Dawson, who is autistic. Ms. Dawson has never been to university, but is working at the level of someone with a PhD. For the last couple of years, these two have been collaborating on research into autism. They argue that autism should be recognized as a different way of being human, rather than as a disease or series of defects to be eradicated.

Related Links

Dr. Mottron's webpage and list of publications
The writings of Michelle Dawson
Michelle Dawson's presentation to the Canadian Senate


See:

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

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Our Lady of Flores Redux

A new update on the hobbit controversy Homo Floresiensis: Two Years Out

I dislike the hobbit dwarf label so,as I have said before since predominately female remains have been identified perhaps the species should have been called Our Lady of Flores.(La nostra signora dei fiori).

"We explore the affinities of LB1 using cranial and postcranial metric and non-metric analyses. LB1 is compared to early Homo, two microcephalic humans, a pygmoid excavated from another cave on Flores, H. sapiens (including African pygmies and Andaman Islanders), Australopithecus, and Paranthropus. Based on these comparisons, we conclude that it is unlikely that LB1 is a microcephalic human, and it cannot be attributed to any known species. Its attribution to a new species, Homo floresiensis, is supported."

One subject that is new is the matter of the tools. Martin et al argue that the tools from 18,000 years ago are not like any simple tool linked to Homo erectus. They are more sophisticated, and have only been associated before with Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. The preservation of the tools in the Liang Bua cave, where the fossils were found, suggests to the scientists modern humans coming back again and again to the cave after they arrived on Flores.

But wait for it.....as usual there is contention....Compelling evidence demonstrates that 'Hobbit' fossil does not represent a new species of hominid



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Prison Zoo Complex

Zoos are prisons, captivity of wild animals is torture and a death sentence. And its justification is usually as lame as this .....

Monterey Aquarium's Great White Shark Stirs Controversy, Attracts Crowds; 'Certain Species Don't Do Well in Captivity' Aquarium spokesman, Ken Peterson. He maintains that having a Great White in captivity is ultimately beneficial to the species. "Tens to hundreds of millions of sharks being killed in the wild is a serious conservation problem for the oceans that needs to be addressed. One of the effective vehicles we as a public aquarium have for reaching people, getting them to care about these issues and take action, is to introduce them to live animals."

Capitivity is sure to kill this shark. And the hysterically inaccurate statement that; "hundreds of MILLIONS" are killed in the wild is used to justify the killing of this one shark.

The reality is yes tens of millions are sharks are killed annually and the way to stop that is to stop the Chinese Soup industry.

Imprisoning rare Great White's and assuring them a speeding death has nothing to do with shark slaughter in the wild.

Triple Threat: World Fin Trade May Harvest September 2006
The first real-data study of sharks harvested for their valuable fins estimates as few as 26 million and as many as 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide—three times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, according to a paper published as the cover story in the October 2006 edition of Ecology Letters.

“The shark fin trade is notoriously secretive. But we were able tap into fin auction records and convert from fin sizes and weights to whole shark equivalents to get a good handle on the actual numbers,” says lead author Shelley Clarke, Ph.D, an American fisheries scientist based in Hong Kong and Japan.

A team of researchers calculated the number of sharks represented in the fin trade using a unique statistical model and data from Hong Kong traders. When the figures were converted to shark weight, the total is three to four times higher than shark catch figures reported to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Concern about the shark finning trade has grown over the past few years as demand has surged beyond sustainable levels for slow-to-produce shark populations and without regulation in most countries. Three shark species are listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), and 20 percent are threatened with extinction according to the 2006 Red List of Threatened Species.

Used in shark fin soup, a delicacy served at Chinese weddings and other celebrations for centuries and more recently at business dinners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim, fins are the most valuable part of the shark, which typically are sliced off as the shark, sometimes still alive, is thrown back into the ocean. The shark fin trade appears to be keeping pace with the growing demand for seafood—up five percent per year in mainland China.

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